by Barrie Jones
My Street Location:
Wheatley Place, Keir Hardie Estate, Merthyr Tydfil, CF47 0TA,
Ordnance Survey Grid Reference 305 701 Easting, 205 427 Northing,
What Three Words: visual. human. light.
Introduction
We are all local to somewhere – to places, as large as a city, county or country, and to places as small as a street or house. In 2020 a nationwide initiative was set up to encourage people to write the history of the street they live in or once lived in. “The Story of Our Street,” invited research into the history of the land the street occupied, the street’s origin, its buildings, and significant events and notable inhabitants, if any, that may be associated with the street.
In 1948 I was born at number thirty-seven Wheatley Place, Keir Hardie Estate, and lived there for the first twenty-five years of my life. Wheatley Place was a brand-new street built in 1948 as part of Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council’s post-war house building programme. Not a street of great age compared with streets in other parts of the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil but after seventy-seven years it has a history, albeit small, that needs telling. This is an account of the street and the land it occupies from its beginnings to the time my parents left number thirty-seven for a new home in Bro Dawel, Plymouth Street, in 1980.
Keir Hardie Estate was built on the remaining portion of Ysgubornewydd Farm, and to those living in the area the estate was known as the “Sgubor or Skeepo.” Once, Ysgubornewydd was a much larger farm sandwiched between the parish road; ‘Heol Ferthyr,’ to the east and the Nant Blacs to the south. The farmland sloped down the valley side from its eastern boundary; the top of Gilfach Cynon (Heol Ferthyr), westwards towards the Merthyr turnpike road, now known as Plymouth Street.
The chapters which will appear over the next few months tell the story of Ysgubornewydd Farm, Keir Hardie Estate, prefabricated BISF houses, and Wheatley Place and our house number thirty-seven.
To be continued……